


Crying Wolf

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Nikandros (Captive Prince), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 05:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16696627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: So it was going to be that kind of week, Nikandros conceded with a sigh.





	Crying Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr [prompt](https://justanotherdaylikeanyother.tumblr.com/post/180350275107/laurent-gets-kidnapped-but-by-the-time-damen-finds) from [sormikhell](https://sormikhell.tumblr.com/).

"Gather the armies!" had not been something Nikandros wanted to hear before he'd even had the chance to start his breakfast. Or ever, under any circumstances, for that matter.

Hoping the answer wouldn't be 'all of them', Nikandros asked, "Which armies, Exalted?"

"Veretian, Akielon, I don't care," Damen said. "Whoever is available to leave right now. Haste may be of the utmost importance. As it is, it must have already taken the messenger at least two days to make it here from Acquitart." 

Acquitart. Where Laurent currently was supposed to be. So it was going to be that kind of week, Nikandros conceded with a sigh. 

"What is your husband up to this time?" Nikandros asked, even knowing that his exasperated words would just be ignored anyway, especially given how fractious Damen was acting.

"What he's 'up to' is being held prisoner. He's been kidnapped over the border into Vask," Damen answered. "I should have gone with him on this trip."

So that Damen could have been kidnapped right alongside him? Nikandros was under no illusions that Damen's presence would have actually stopped this nonsense, after all. He went along with Laurent's more ridiculous plans far too easily for Nikandros's comfort.

"I'll tell Makedon that King Laurent won't be present at their hunt next week unless he helps to extract him. You'll have two thousand men ready to ride out within half an hour, if I know the old man at all. Makedon would do just about anything to have the opportunity to feed King Laurent as much griva as he can pretend to bear once the hunt itself is over."

Damen frowned. "I'm not sure you're taking this as seriously as the situation merits."

"Of course I am, Exalted." Nikandros was sure he was treating it with _exactly_ the right level of gravity, actually. Nikandros simply was able to recall – where Damen himself apparently couldn't right then – that this wasn't at all the first time Laurent had disappeared without warning. 

Of course, Nikandros had paid attention to the fables that were told to them in boyhood. There was some minor chance that this could turn out to be the time that Laurent was no longer just 'crying wolf' for the sheer enjoyment of making everything into a game. If so, Nikandros had no intention of being even partly responsible for Damen's crushing heartbreak if they treated the situation too lightly and it resulted in tragedy. So Nikandros did gather men as ordered, though they were his own rather than Makedon's in the end. And it was only about five hundred of them. Even if Laurent's kidnapping was real after all, Nikandros imagined they might be facing two or three allied Vaskian tribes at most. Anything bigger than that would have required the Empress's backing, and Nikandros was sure she knew better than to so explicitly pick a fight with the budding empire that was in the process of forming to her western border. 

In deference to Damen's obvious worry, Nikandros also didn't actively object when they rode out at a near breakneck pace at Damen's urging. They drove their beasts onwards faster than they otherwise would have, to the point that both the men and the horses were verging on but not yet _quite_ at the point of exhaustion. Damen wouldn't have dared go quite so far as to risk doing actual harm to the horses, unless he wanted Laurent to divorce him the moment they 'rescued' him.

They passed Acquitart after a little less than two days of riding hard to the east. The fort at Acquitart was barely even out of sight behind them before they stumbled into what seemed to be a scouting party of Vaskians. Though 'stumbled into' was perhaps not quite the right way to describe it when by all appearances they seemed to have been specifically waiting to intercept them. Nikandros wasn't surprised that they were expected. The news of the alliance between Vere and Akielos, and the fact that they were well on their way into solidifying it into a full-blown Empire, was widely known, even in the neighbouring countries. Surely anyone who thought to confine King Laurent had to have some concept that they would have a second King showing up on their doorstep soon enough.

The women barely seemed to speak Akielon, but at least one of them was fluent enough in Veretian to be understandable. More or less. It was a near thing, for when she offered to take them to 'the fair-haired leader', Nikandros's Veretian was good enough to realise that she'd gotten everything from the heavily-accented pronunciation to the grammar to the gendering of the noun wrong by Veretian standards. But she still got her point across. She would only take the leader of their company, though, she said. Clearly, it was no mystery to her who that leader might be, for she looked straight at Damen as she said it.

"He goes nowhere without me," Nikandros said in Veretian, which was spoken haltingly, but still better than hers. 

She looked Nikandros over and shrugged. "You good breeding stock. You come."

Damen laughed. Nikandros didn't.

"This army awaits us," Nikandros added, gesturing back at the large group of men spread out behind him. "We don't return in the morning, they attack."

She gestured in some complicated manner that Nikandros didn't understand. He was left with the vague impression that she'd non-verbally just declared something along the lines of 'fuck you and your army'. But she did it with a slight smile, so he couldn't really be sure. And she did agree to his terms either way. With one condition.

They had to be blindfolded on the way. Of course they did. Laurent had probably recommended it, and would be laughing at Nikandros's expense right now.

It was a long walk, made longer by the fact that Nikandros kept half-tripping over things he couldn't see. He was fairly certain the Vaskians grasping each of his arms were purposely steering him towards rockier terrain because they found it amusing when he inevitably stumbled. The one Veretian-speaking woman even commented that perhaps he was not ideal for the women to lay with after all, if he was too defective to even be able to raise his feet off the ground. Nikandros gritted his teeth, but managed to remain silent. He couldn't say the same for Damen, who he could hear laughing off to his right. 

Far more than the treatment along the walk, it galled Nikandros to be pushed to his knees once they'd apparently arrived at their destination. He nearly lunged for the nearest weapon when he heard them do the same to his King. It seemed they hadn't known it was specifically King Damianos of Akielos they'd been waiting for after all. Or, if they did, they were bigger fools than Nikandros had adjudged them to still treat him that way regardless. Perhaps, then, they also didn't know that the other outsider who must be in their midst was actually King Laurent of Vere.

When the blindfolds were finally removed, Nikandros wasn't even all that surprised that the first thing he saw was Laurent sprawling atop what appeared to be the Vaskian version of a throne. It was lower to the ground by far than anything the Veretians would ever favour for their King, but otherwise he looked every inch the same as he did when he was holding court at home, except that this time the layers he was covered in were furs rather than laces upon more laces.

Damen, clearly relieved at the sight of his husband, pushed himself up off his knees and moved towards Laurent. The Vaskians tried to hold him back from approaching without permission. 'Tried' being the operative word, for at best they slowed his progress down a little. When Laurent held up a hand and said something in Vaskian, they let Damen go. He rushed to Laurent's side while Nikandros stood back up, back straight.

"You're alright?" Damen asked softly.

"Of course I am," Laurent replied haughtily. "You didn't think I would need help to get myself out of a basic kidnapping, did you?" 

"Nikandros said as much, but I thought it was pointless to just sit around and wait to see."

"That's why you came, was it? Because it was pointless not to? Not because you were worried?" Laurent made a humming sound that had a very clear overtone of disbelief. Then he looked past Damen at Nikandros. "Did you really voice some kind of confidence in my ability to look out for myself? That's practically a compliment."

"More like I expressed my doubt that you'd really been kidnapped at all," Nikandros corrected. "Last time you were 'taken into custody', supposedly against your will, I believe you used the opportunity to infiltrate a fort and had an entire meeting full of traitors to the alliance arrested. I simply wondered if you'd upgraded to using a kidnapping to try to take over the entirety Vask." 

Laurent scoffed, "Really, now, it's only been four days. Even I would need at least _double_ that to conquer an entire empire, if I were so inclined. Removing one troublesome tyrannical clan leader from power, on the other hand? I was done with that in the first two hours of my captivity. Had I known it would take you so long to arrive, I might have taken my time with the whole process."

"And I suppose you don't mind completely destabilising this clan when you as their new adopted leader leave suddenly straight after their old leader was displaced," said Nikandros.

Laurent said flippantly, "Oh, this is just an honorary position. Something of a 'thank you for getting rid of that bitch who was here before' and a placeholder until they officially elevate their new leader to the throne tomorrow. And you can be sure that they're at least far more stable now than they were under the rule of that woman. She wasn't a good leader, to say the least. If it weren't for the laws that prevent members of rival clans from engaging in combat with each other without the Empress's permission, I would not have been the only one challenging her."

"Halvik called you in to get around the legalities, then?" Damen said.

Nikandros had no idea who 'Halvik' was, but she must have been someone Damen had met when he'd last dealt with Vaskians directly. Clearly not one of the women he'd bedded, for Damen had been unable to remember their names anymore by the time he'd recounted that story to Nikandros. He'd always been so terrible when it came to that sort of thing. 

"And you arranged to help these clans all out of the goodness of your heart, I'm sure," Nikandros said.

Laurent was unapologetic. "Let's just say that there will be fewer raids over our side of the border for a time, and that Acquitart and the surrounding area can finally expect to start flourishing a little more over the next few years. Plus, now I have a favour I can cash in. The value of that shouldn't be underestimated."

"There are easier ways to ensure those kinds of things than contriving all of this, you know," said Nikandros.

"You should know by now that Laurent isn't interested in what's easy," Damen said. "Where would be the fun in that?"

"Fun," Nikandros repeated flatly. "You were worried half out of your mind not even an hour ago. Was that fun?"

"Ha," Laurent said. "So you really _were_ worried about me."

"You were kidnapped," Damen point out. "At least initially, and I had no way of knowing you'd freed yourself. Was I supposed to just sit back and be alright with it when I thought that all manner of things might have been happening to you?"

The edges of Laurent's lips formed tiny curlicues when Damen reached out to lace their fingers together. Nikandros repressed the urge to roll his eyes. Barely.

"Of course not," Laurent said. "I'm glad you came. And I knew you would. I was relying on it, potentially. I'm hardly foolish enough to put myself in this situation without some kind of backup, am I?"

"And I was your backup plan?" 

"You're always my backup plan."

Damen was still shaking his head, albeit fondly, at Laurent when one of the Vaskian tribesmen approached Laurent from the side of his 'throne' that Damen hadn't claimed. The man said something. It was far too quick and long for Nikandros to catch even the basic gist of it.

Damen clearly picked up on enough of it, though, for he immediately made a strange choking sound, somewhere between laughter and shock. 

"You understood that?" Nikandros asked.

"I had to learn a Vaskian dialect or two out of sheer self-preservation."

Nikandros had a sneaking suspicion that whatever the story behind that was, it probably involved Laurent and Vannes, who together were the bane of Nikandros's existence at court.

"Well, what did he say?" Nikandros prompted.

"Nothing that bears repeating," Damen said. He looked uncomfortable, so Nikandros could guess the topic in at least the broadest of terms.

Where Damen might have been cagey, though, Laurent seemed gleefully willing to explain. Enough so that Nikandros regretted asking. Laurent said, "He informed me that there's a place at the coupling fires set aside for our reunion. And he questioned whether the reason I have not availed myself of the services of himself and the other men is that I already have you two strong bucks at my disposal."

Nikandros made a face, both at being referred to as a 'buck', like an animal, and at the mere idea that there might ever be any 'coupling' between himself and Laurent. He determinedly pushed that concept aside in favour of a different consideration.

The coupling fires, Nikandros was given to understand from Damen's sheepish recounting of his own time in the company of Vaskians, had a very specific purpose. One that Laurent could not be expected to satisfy with the Vaskian men.

"Men are not offered leadership roles in Vask," Nikandros said suspiciously. "Not even honorarily, I would assume."

"No, they're not," Laurent agreed coolly.

Nikandros thought back to the woman using the feminine version of the Veretian word for 'leader' when she'd been referring to Laurent. He'd thought it a simple mistake. He probably should have guessed even then.

"Did you have to dress up like a Vaskian woman?" Damen asked. He sounded intrigued. Of course he did. The tunics the Vaskian women wore seemed to cover even less than the smallest chitons, and Damen had long since made it clear how much he liked seeing Laurent wearing _those_ when the heat grew too intense for Veretian or even hybridised fashions to be bearable. Though Nikandros couldn't help but think that, revealing as the Vaskian clothes were, they would probably do more to reveal Laurent's gender than help misconstrue it.

Laurent wouldn't have needed to dress like a woman to sell the ruse anyway, Nikandros thought. He was surely prettier than any Vaskian woman regardless of how he dressed. Nikandros then immediately regretted allowing that thought to register in his mind. He was glad he hadn't said it aloud. Laurent would never have let him live it down. And Damen probably would have still been sending him suspicious glares at random moments five years down the track from now.

Laurent remained silent on the question of how he had presented himself to the Vaskians initially. Nikandros was glad. There were some mental pictures he just didn't need to be privy to. Like the time his mind had damn near stopped working for a long moment when he'd learned how Laurent had convincingly portrayed Jokaste in a dress.

"Do you think anyone would notice anything was unusual if we took advantage of that place at the coupling fires they've set aside for us?" Nikandros heard Damen ask in a low voice. Unsurprisingly, he clearly wasn't anywhere near as averse to finding out what Laurent might currently be wearing under those furs as Nikandros was.

"How about we don't take that chance," Nikandros countered in a louder voice. Damen looked slightly abashed to have been overheard, even if it was only by Nikandros, who had over the years already heard far more explicit details than that about Damen's bedroom exploits. Or his fireside exploits, as the case may be. Nikandros concluded, "If you really can't restrain yourselves despite having spent only a week apart, at least find a tent or something. I'd prefer not to turn this staged capture into a real one if these people realise you were lying to them all along."

"I never lied," Laurent declared. "Is it my fault they just assumed?" 

Nikandros – who liked to believe that everything even slightly bad or wrong that happened in the world was ultimately, somehow, Laurent's fault – was strongly tempted to say yes. That would probably only amuse Laurent, though. Nikandros chose instead not to give him the satisfaction of a response.

Laurent didn't remain on his throne for much longer before he seemed to decide that it was late enough in the evening that he could justify disappearing into his tent for the night, tugging Damen in his wake. Nikandros didn't understand much of what the Vaskians around them had to say about Laurent and Damen's departure, but he suspected from the way they kept looking at Nikandros himself with something bordering on pity that they'd decided that Laurent must have shunned Nikandros in favour of Damen for the night. They seemed to be feeling sorry for Nikandros for being left alone. Nikandros wished he could fully communicate with them just how much he personally preferred that arrangement to the alternative that they were clearly imagining.

Before they disappeared entirely, Laurent called back to Nikandros, "We'll be leaving in the morning, shortly after daybreak. I'm sure the ladies here would be all too happy to entertain you until then."

Nikandros was already waiting in dread for the day he had to help deal with at least half a dozen curly-haired half-Vaskian children showing up on the doorstep of the new palace at Marlas claiming a right to the Akielon throne. He didn't have any intention of further complicating things by potentially adding his own little brood of foreign children into the mix.

Besides, after two days of riding, then being treated like a second-class citizen by the Vaskians on the way here, and then having to deal with Laurent on arrival, the only activity Nikandros was really interested in engaging in right now was sleeping.

That was really all Nikandros ever felt like doing, to be honest. Ever since Damen's behaviour started systematically taking years off Nikandros's life expectancy, he'd felt like a year straight of sleep still wouldn't be enough.

The women seemed disappointed when Nikandros managed to convey to them that, yes, he _did_ want to go to bed, but alone, thanks very much. They still showed him to a tent he could use, but their reluctance was clear. 

Once Nikandros collapsed onto the bedroll, it only took a minute or so for the drumbeats in the background to lull him to sleep. He spent the better part of that minute mentally preparing himself for another exhausting ride, this time on the way back to Marlas. It wasn't that he expected a repeat of the punishing pace this time. Rather, Nikandros just knew without question that he was going to have to spend the whole time watching two men act more like foolishly infatuated adolescents than the accomplished Kings they were supposed to be.


End file.
